He Always Fled
by BarnumOnTheBrain
Summary: Tonks loves Remus, and Remus loves Tonks. Why can't he just admit it and stay? Watered-down lemonade of one of my favourite pairings.


**Just a lil' Tonks and Remus lovin' for you all. I love these two, they're one of my favourite pairings, and it pains me that their relationship is so in the background, in both books and films.**

**All characters belong to the illustrious JK Rowling – I'm merely borrowing them and fully intended to put them back into their box once I've finished playing with them.**

It was a perfectly ordinary day, that bleak June day. There was no one in the house but Tonks and Remus – but they might as well have been alone in their own houses, for the amount of interaction they had during the morning. Number twelve, Grimmauld Place was still, as the other Order members had congregated at the Burrow for dinner, but neither Tonks nor Remus could face it. It was too soon to think about being happy again.

The floorboards creaked under her foot as Tonks swung her legs off the grand four poster bed that she had chosen to sleep on that afternoon, and small puffs of dust rose as her shoes shuffled across the old wood. It was her turn to feed Buckbeak, who was yet to be rehoused after Sirius'-

Well, she didn't want to think about that, not just yet.

Kreacher glared at her as she passed him quietly on the stairs; she just ignored his mutterings about her being "half-blood filth", and wrapped her dark jacket more tightly around her shoulders, wishing the hallways had fireplaces. She reached the top of the final staircase and, without looking at the sign, opened the door labelled "Sirius". There was little light left in the sky outside, and so most of the room was thrown into shadow, but she could still make out the sharp outline of Buckbeak's magnificent neck, the curve of his rump and the glow of his large, yellow eyes. She bowed lowly and held her breath. She liked animals, but she somehow felt Buckbeak was more than just an animal; there was some human quality to him, and that made her nervous. She heard the sound of him cluck his beak, and she rose in time to see his head dip down and lift up again.

"Hey, Beaky," she said softly, pulling the bag of dead rats that she had been carrying off her shoulder. "I haven't got much for you today, sorry."

"I'm sure a little food is better than none," came a quiet voice from the far corner.

Tonks jumped instinctively for her wand, but the voice beat her to it. A patch of light at the end of a wand flickered over Remus' face. He was half smiling, but the light of the wand sent eerie shadows over his face, highlighting the scars that ran across his face. She caught her breath for a moment. He was still a very beautiful man.

But beautiful or not, she couldn't be in the same room as him. Not now.

She dropped the bag in the corner without looking towards Remus and walked out, closing the door behind her. Her vision was blurred as she ran down the stairs and she threw herself into the dark, musty room, slamming the door behind her.

She didn't know he was still here. She assumed that, after what had happened, he would have left. She thought at the very least that he would be having dinner with the rest of the Order at the Burrow. She didn't even think he could bear to be here after what happened at the Ministry. She knew she scarcely could.

She shuffled over to the window and folded her arms across her chest, looking out across the misty street. A lamp to her left flickered as the sounds of a catfight could just be heard over the sirens, cars and general rumble of London. She watched the flickering light and though of the last time she had spoken to Remus. It had been almost two weeks ago, and they were alone in the house, much like that particular evening. They had sat together on the floor of his room, talking for what seemed like hours – he told her of his childhood, his parents and his attack, and how his life had changed from then on. She listened as he told her about Sirius, James and Wormtail, and how they had done so much to make him feel safe with them. Then tears came as he explained to her how his friend, his brother, had died because of the person they thought they could trust, and how, for twelve long years, he thought he had lost all three of his Marauders. Tonks held him in her arms as he mourned the brother he had only rediscovered for two years before his death. He had clung onto her arms, rested his head on her shoulder, and she had kissed away his tears, stroked his flecked hair, promising that he still had her. She knew that she would never even begin to replace the boys and men that had made his tortured existence bearable, but she hoped that she could at least help him begin to heal. They had made love that night.  
But after that? Nothing. By the time she awoke the following morning, he had left the house, and didn't return for a week. When he eventually came back, he refused to look at her, let alone talk to her. Tonks was tortured. He wasn't just a random to her, not just some guy that she screwed a few times – he was the man she was beginning to fall in love with.

A knock on the door wrenched her from her thoughts and she blinked, realising she had been staring at the streetlamp for too long. She blinked a few times, trying to get the burned image of the light from her eyes and rubbed them, walking over to the door.

"What is it, Kreacher?" she asked, yanking the stiff door open. A large shadow was cast over her by a man certainly taller than the Black's house elf. "Oh. You're not Kreacher."

Remus leant on the doorframe, his head tilted down and hands behind his back. "Tonks, I'm sorry."

She snorted. "Sorry? You're sorry? For what, exactly?" She kept her hand on the door, ready to slam it at any moment.

He looked up at her, his brown eyes piercing into her. "I shouldn't have left you like that. It was wrong of me and I wish I hadn't."

"Well, you did, didn't you?" she said furiously, her bubblegum pink hair slowly darkening as anger bubbled inside of her. "You slept with me and then fled, like I'm a common slut, didn't you? Is that all I am to you, Remus, a common slut?"

"No, you're not!" he said, look aghast. "How could you think I could ever look at you like that, Nymphadora, you're-"

"Don't call me that!" she exclaimed. He took a step back, looking stricken at her anger.

"Tonks, please," he said, almost begging her to stop. "Please, I'm so sorry for what I did, you have to believe me!"

She gave a half-laugh. "And why should I?"

He looked lost for words, opening and closing his mouth as if trying to find the right words but knowing they would not come.

"You don't get it, do you Remus?" she said after a moment. "I've known you for less than a year, and I've never loved anyone like I love you. That night we spent together was the best night of my life, and I'll never forget it, but you just left. And you know what is just the final kick in the teeth? You couldn't even care less. Because to you, I'm nothing more than a kid barely out of school who can do a few tricks with how she looks, just the girl people can have a laugh with."

As she spoke, Remus' heart felt heavy. She couldn't know why he left. She would never understand how much he loved her, but how much he wanted her to know it. And as she stood in front of him, tears streaming down her face, waiting, silently pleading, for him to contradict her, he was torn. He wanted to take her into his arms and love her the way she deserved, but he knew that he was a poison to her – if he didn't hurt her, he would end up killing her. All she had to do was sleep in the same bed as him on the night of the full moon and she would be gone.

She stood silent for a moment, waiting for his reply. But there was none, and so she closed the door on his scarred face and crawled into the large, cold bed, feeling more alone than she ever had before.

Remus stood still for a moment, his nose mere inches from the door and slowly but surely, unfolded his hands and reached for the door handle. The muffled sound of Tonks' sobs reached his ears and his jaw set. He pushed the door open and the light from the landing spilled across the room, casting his shadow onto the bed.

"Please, leave me be," Tonks cried quietly from the bed. "What more could you do?"

He closed the door and walked carefully over to the four poster. Tonks was huddled into a ball in the middle, her face turned away from him and the covers wrapped tightly around her small body, her jacket flung into the corner. He knelt on the bed, the mattress groaning underneath his weight and leaned his head down to her shoulder. He pulled the cover back slowly and lifted her short, bright hair away from her neck, leaving the smooth, pale skin there bare.

"Tonks," he whispered, placing a gentle kiss just below her jaw. Her body relaxed slightly at his touch. His lips traced along her neck and over her jaw as his hand wove across her body, turning him to her. Her eyelids opened and her wet eyes regarded him, looking confused.

"Remus, I don't understand," she whispered, his mouth hovering just above hers.

"Neither do I," he replied quietly, his eyes roaming her face, "but I know I can't let you go on thinking I don't care about you. That I don't love you."

And with that, all of her fears slipped away. Her arms came free from her huddled embrace and her fingers slipped into his hair, pulling his head down and meeting his lips with her own. She lay back on the pillows just behind her head and pushed his long robes away from his shoulders, feeling the warmth of his gently moving lips against hers, pushing her tongue gentling inside his mouth. He groaned quietly, and ran his hands up and down her sides, pressing his body against hers. Her back arched towards his and he pulled her upright so they were sitting on the mattress, facing one another with their faces inches apart. Slowly, she reached for his shirt, and opened the buttons one by one, looking him directly in the eye. She pushed the material from his shoulders, down his slender arms and away from his back. Underneath her fingers, she could feel the ridges of the scars left there from years of agonising transformations and he shivered, leaning in and kissing her slowly, deeply, savouring the taste of her.

His hands carefully pushed her colourful t-shirt up her sides and over her head, reaching for the clasp of her bra and pulling it away, leaving her gloriously bare underneath his hands. He pulled her towards him once more and rolled over, allowing her small frame to rest on his and breathed in her scent. She smelt like peppermint and olives.

Soon their clothes were resting on either side of the bed and they made love; luxurious, tender love that lasted well into the night, and when they were both deeply satisfied, Tonks fell asleep in his arms, feeling that, at last, all was well.

Remus couldn't sleep at all that night, and when she had rolled away from him at around two in the morning, his gathered his clothes and placed a sad, tender kiss on her forehead before leaving twelve Grimmauld Place in dead silence.

That morning, Tonks woke up alone. She cried into the pillow that still held his musty smell, only to be disturbed by an owl that tapped on the window. In its beak was a letter without an envelope, a note scrawled hastily that said _I love you, I truly do. And I'm so sorry._

She tore up the letter and lamented the love she scarcely held, and the loss of the future she never really had.

It took one long year of this painful relationship before Remus stopped running from her. He never really could accept what he was, but he knew that he couldn't be who he was without her. She meant more to him than an illness, more than social rejection. And when the time came, he battled at her side. When he saw her fall for the last time, he fought in agony for her memory, and moments later joined her, in the knowledge that they would be united in death, as they were in life. They watched their son grow up under the care of his loving family, and knew that he would one day too, find someone that completed him, as they completed each other.


End file.
